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mad with grief as a bitch-wolf whose cubs are taken from her, panting for revenge, she followed the day-old blood-trail to the threshold of Heorot and hurled back the door.
    Within was a sudden dreadful uproar. Men sprang from the sleeping-benches, snatching up their weapons, but as no blade could bite on her son’s charmed hide, so none could bite on hers. She surged forward, heedless of all that they could do against her, and with a triumphant yell she grasped Aschere, whom the King loved best of all his thanes, and next instant was gone with him into the night.
    Lamentation swept through Heorot, where so short a time before had been laughter and the song of the harp. Word was carried to the King and he came and stood among them, with his grey beard wild from his pillow, and the tears of grief for Aschere his friend trickling down the deep-cut lines of his stern face.
    Beowulf and his comrades, weary after their struggle of the night before, slept deep and dreamlessly, and heard no sound until Beowulf woke in the first greyness of the dawn, to find a hand shaking his shoulder and a voice crying in his ear that he must come to Hrothgar the King.
    He flung a cloak round his nakedness and with his comrades went out after the messenger, and across the wet grass under the apple trees to Heorot the Hart. He found Hrothgar seated in his High Seat, no longer weeping but with his face as it were turned to stone.
    â€˜My lord Hrothgar, what has happened here in the night?’
    The old man stared straight before him, and his voice was dull and hard. ‘Evil has returned to Heorot.’
    â€˜What evil? Surely Grendel has not come again. What evil? Tell me!’
    â€˜Grendel? Nay, not Grendel. I have heard men speak before now of having seen not one but two Night-Stalkers among the moorland mists, and one of them in some sort like a woman. Fool that I was, and thrice-cursed fool. I paid no heed to the tale, but now I know all too surely that the tale was true. Dead is Aschere, my Councillor and shoulder-to-shoulder man. Many times we strove side by side in battle, shedding our blood together and sharing the mead horn afterwards; and now he is dead, slain by the foul kinswoman of the monster whom you slew.’
    Beowulf straightened himself and shook off the last rags of sleep that still clung about him. ‘I have still my strength, Hrothgar the King, and still it is at your service.’
    Nothing changed in the stony face of the old King, only his hands clenched and unclenched on the carved foreposts of the Seat. ‘Save us from this new horror, Beowulf, as you saved us from the other. You alone can do it. Yet not even you can bring back to life Aschere, who was near to me as my own heart.’
    â€˜Sorrow not so grievously,’ Beowulf said quickly. ‘It is better that a man should avenge his friend than mourn him overmuch. Each of us must wait the end of life, and if a man gain honour while he lives, as Aschere gained it, that is best for a warrior when the time comes that Wyrd cuts the web of his living from the loom. Abide but this one day and your friend shall not lie unavenged, though I cannot bring him back to you.’ He covered the clenched hands with his own and looked into the stricken face of the King. ‘Listen, and believe me. Not in Earth’s breast nor in the fiery heart of the mountains nor the black depths of the sea shall the She-Wolf escape my coming.’
    Hrothgar drew a long breath, and seemed to draw in strength with it as a gift from the young champion. Light came again into his eyes, and he got slowly to his full height and looked about him. ‘Have my horse saddled, and others for Beowulf and whoever chooses to ride with us. We are for the Wolf-Woman’s lair.’
    Beowulf strode away to his own quarters, and even before the horses had been brought round, he had returned, wearing the ring-mail sark that was as fine as a salmon skin, and his own close-fitting